Tag Archives: La Passe

Welcome to La Digue! This was the smallest of the three islands we visited. It’s the third largest inhabited island in the Seychelles, but it’s still pretty small. No cars! Everyone gets around on bike or foot. We loved it. Here are the beaches on which we spent our time.

Village of La Passe on the east coast of the island – walking just outside of town at low tide. This beach doesn’t even have a name that I could find, and it’s too shallow to swim, but the great views of Praslin are breath-taking. One day we just sat on a log and ate our lunch while taking it all in.

View of Praslin from Village of La Passe

Grand Anse – A picturesque beach with huge waves and surrounded by large granite rocks. Imagine long sweeping arcs of pristine white sand. The big waves roll in from across the Indian Ocean and they are both wild and wonderful. There are many warnings not to swim due to a strong undertow, but we were not the only ones in the water and in this (admittedly strong) swimmer’s opinion, the Seychellois are much more cautious about swimming than us Northeasterners!

Grand Anse.

You can see the granite rocks in the distance.

From Grand Anse, you can take a leisurely hike to Petite Anse by walking across the rocks and following the footpath. During the 15 minutes it took us, there was some beautiful scenery in the form of hidden pools, unlike what we saw on the beaches.

A hidden pool between Grand Anse and Petit Anse

How gorgeous is this? Another hidden pool between Grand Anse and Petit Anse

Petite Anse – This is the Sister beach to Grand Anse. It was raining when we got there but still beautiful enough that we decided to wait it out under one of the little palm frond shelters there. Swimming here is also regarded as dangerous, but that didn’t bother us. We stashed our things in a crevice between those famous granite rocks, and dove in.

Petite Anse

Petite Anse

We sat under one of these palm shelters to keep out of the rain

Anse Cocos – We continued on the path to get to this beach which is also accessible only on foot. This beach is more sheltered; it benefits from a natural lagoon formed by granite rocks providing calm waters to swim in. I believe it was low tide, however, and it looked… well… murky.

Anse Cocos

Anse Cocos

Anse Cocos

Anse Source D’Argent – This place is reputed to be the most photographed beach in the world, and it’s not hard to understand why once you see it. It was my absolute FAVE of not only all the beaches we saw in the Seychelles, but in the world!! It has soft white sand, clear turquoise water and huge granite boulders sculptured by the elements and time itself. The very shallow waters are so sheltered by the reef that they actually felt HOT when we snorkeled. I had to swim super far out to get to lukewarm, and finally somewhat cool water.

The one downside to this beach is that the only access is via L’Union Estate, which requires an entrance fee for non-residents.